Putin

When it came to defining the importance of the western provinces and their relationship to China’s dominant population group, the Han, no one put it better than Mao did back in 1956: “We say China is a country vast in territory, rich in resources and large in population; as a matter of fact, it is the Han nationality whose population is large and the minority nationalities whose territory is vast and whose resources are rich.”

Not only do these non-Han western provinces possess land and natural wealth; they are one of the principal places through which China imports energy and exports manufactured goods. A part of the ancient Silk Road that supplied Rome with silk for togas, they are integral to President Xi’s dream of building a new Silk Road as part of China’s March West strategy. On a state visit to Kazakhstan in September 2013, President Xi waxed poetic on the subject: “I can almost hear the ring of the camel bells and [see] the wisps of smoke in the desert.” Like Mao, Xi is physically large and imposing, given to poetic speech and a grandiose sense of self and mission that is already resulting in something of a personality cult around “Papa Xi,” as he is sometimes known.

There are also affinities between Xi and Putin, the first leader he visited after assuming control of China. Men of the same generation, they face a similar task—to finally deliver their nations from a sense of humiliation and make them great powers while at the same time balancing economic dynamism with state control of information and opinion. Putin’s popularity in China jumped to 92 percent after Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Biographies of “Putin the Great” make the bestseller list. Major General Wang Haiyun, a former military attaché to Moscow, expressed quite clearly the Chinese image of Putin as a “bold and decisive leader of a great power, who’s good at achieving victory in a dangerous situation.”

Xi not only says that he and Putin are alike but has sought to further emulate the Russian leader. The modernization of China’s army, the People’s Liberation Army, is being closely modeled on Putin’s revamp of the Russian army—leaner, meaner, more professional, gearing up to use high-tech and hybrid warfare rather than to fight great massed battles. China’s island-building in the South China Sea was inspired by and modeled after Russia’s actions in Crimea and east Ukraine. The two countries’ militaries are now working together more closely than ever, not only in joint exercises, but in sharing “information in such a sensitive area as missile launch warning systems and ballistic missile defense, [which] indicates something beyond simple co-operation,” says Vasily Kashin, an expert on China’s military at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

Though some fear a Russia-China axis based on their shared opposition to American hegemony, the two countries are, as we shall see, ultimately more likely to collide than to coordinate.

Xi’s interest in a new Silk Road is of course more prosaic than poetic. China imports huge quantities of gas and oil from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, which have shown themselves to be more pliant and reliable partners than Russia. But to reach China that gas and oil must flow through the western province of Xinjiang, which is restive to put it mildly.

Usually the Dalai Lama’s words have a calming effect on people. But not always. One phrase that he occasionally uses can infuriate the Chinese leadership. This is not a mantra learned in the occult monasteries of Tibet but a dullish geographical term: “East Turkestan.”

What does it mean? And why does it infuriate the Chinese?

East Turkestan is a huge area in northwest China amounting to about one-sixth of the country. The Chinese government absolutely insists that it be called Xinjiang or, even more officially, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The local people are Uighurs, Muslims who speak a Turkic language. Like the Tibetans they would prefer independence from China but would probably settle for genuine autonomy. Like the Tibetans they feel no affinity with China on any level.

When the Dalai Lama uses the phrase “East Turkestan” he is in effect saying that Xinjiang is a natural part of Turkic-speaking Islamic Central Asia, not of China, which holds it by force alone. To the Chinese this is a seditious term, a call to revolt. In 2010 China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman declared that the Dalia Lama’s use of such language proved “his intent of splitting the country and sabotaging ethnic unity.”